


Wiwo'ole (fearless)

by evening_spirit



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Fic Exchange, Flashback, Friendship, Gen, Hawaiian Volcanoes, Kilauea, Natural Disasters, Volcanoes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-02
Updated: 2011-12-02
Packaged: 2017-10-26 19:10:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/286865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evening_spirit/pseuds/evening_spirit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve takes Danny and Grace on a trip to Kilauea and because Hawaii really doesn't like Danny, the volcano erupts almost literally under their feet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wiwo'ole (fearless)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [_thelostcity (thelostcity)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelostcity/gifts).



> The story was written for H50-exchange
> 
> Thank you to Zolac-No-Miko for being a bottomless well of wisdom about volcanoes, to BigJ52 for correcting my bad grammar and punctuation and to tailoredshirt and delicatale for organizing this awesome feast. Especially to delicatale for handholding and encouragement.
> 
> I also bow down in gratitude before Madame Pele, for granting me inspiration to write this story.
> 
>   
> [   
> ](http://s744.photobucket.com/albums/xx82/evening_spirit/hawaii/elements/?action=view&current=Wiwo.jpg)   
> 

***

 

 _"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain."_

 **~Frank Herbert, _Dune_**

 

***

 

All Danny could do was curl into a ball, Grace between his legs, and hold her close to him, cover her head with his arms, shield her body with his. She was screaming. He wanted to scream too but he decided that he would be brave for her.

 

People were running around them but Danny only turned his back to the stone-hurling, lava-spitting caldera, determined to take the first burn if Madame Pele decided to strike in their direction. He feared that his body was a poor shield for Grace against the wrath of the Fiery Goddess so he tried a prayer too. Nothing like a religious awakening in the face of imminent doom.

 

"Do not panic!" A feminine voice carried over the cacophony of whines, cries, explosions and sounds of boulders smashing against the rim of the depression that was less than a hundred feet from them. It did little good. "Stay low and cover your heads!" A ranger with Hawaii Volcanoes National Park -- a girl really, not more than twenty years old, dark-haired and petite -- appeared out of nowhere as soon as the explosions started. She now took it upon herself to save everyone who happened to be unfortunate enough to find themselves at the site, including Danny, Grace and . . . yeah, Steve, whose idea it was in the first place. "Try to move toward the bus!" she screamed.

 

Danny dared a glance up. The bus. It was a large van really, belonging to some organized group of tourists. It stood less than fifty paces away on the asphalt of the parking lot, beside their rented car and why, oh why did Steve drag Grace and him all the way to the precipice, promising a ‘view they’d never forget’?

 

Yes, the view was unforgettable, astounding. The depression in the ground could fit in a small town. The bottom of the caldera was at least three hundred feet below, down the steep cliff. However the most unforgettable thing about it was the moment when the ground had shaken beneath their feet and something had moved beneath the floor of the caldera as if a giant worm was digging through the ground just under the surface. A split second later it burst open with a deafening groan and threw the stones up almost as high as they were standing.

 

Danny couldn’t remember how he found himself half-way toward the parking lot, unsure if his legs or the earth were shaking, scrambling for terrified Grace. "Monkey, Monkey," he was repeating frantically, thinking that those stones would not reach them, it was not possible that they would soar that high!

 

"Move toward the bus!" the ranger girl was still trying to herd the panicked people away from danger.

 

"Go, Monkey, go," Danny whispered into his daughter’s hair, crouched, nearly wrapped around her. "Just move." She wouldn't even budge.

 

"Sir," he heard the ranger girl’s voice right next to him so he angled his head but she was talking to someone else. "Sir, please, we need to get away from here!" Danny looked all the way up.

 

Steve damn McGarrett was standing straight as a pole, staring into the caldera, transfixed.

 

"Steve!" Danny screamed but his friend didn’t even blink. He froze, just like Grace.

 

And the sight, as Danny now noticed, was indeed something to admire. The boulders weren’t flying up anymore and the dirty cloud-like mass was dissolving, giving way to the red-hot fountain of melted rocks. The lava spray was growing higher and higher, reaching nearly half-way to the top of the cliff. Danny didn’t see the bottom of the fire, the crack in the earth, because it was obscured by the edge, but he could well imagine . . .

 

He could well understand Steve’s fascination.

 

"We need to get to shelter." The ranger’s plea reached Danny again. She was pulling at McGarrett’s hand, to no avail.

 

"Commander!" Danny yelled as loud as he could. Calling a military man’s rank was a guaranteed way to get their attention and indeed, Steve turned his death-like glare on his partner. "Move! Now!" Steve’s eyes skimmed over Danny, Grace, the bus in the distance and the frightened face of ranger girl and before Danny managed to suck in a breath, the ex-SEAL was in action. In one step he closed the distance between them, scooped Grace in his arms -- for a blink of an eye she looked like a little kitten curled in the tree branches, before Steve turned away and hid her from Danny’s view -- and he took off toward the bus.

 

"Shit!" Danny followed him right away, ranger girl in tow.

 

Almost everyone else was crowding at the bus already, pushing and pulling and screaming. When they reached it and Steve put Grace on the ground, directing her to board the bus, he turned back and grabbed ranger girl’s arm.

 

"You got radio?" he half-asked, half-stated and without waiting for her response, ordered, "We need to report our position and request evac."

 

"It’s already reported!" the ranger exclaimed. "We’re instructed to get away from here, so board the bus or take your own car and drive down the Rim Drive toward the Highway and then south--”

 

Steve’s brows knit closer and closer together as she was yelling and finally he snapped.

 

"You’re to relay orders, not give them!" his eyes were searching for something on her arm. "What’s your rank?" he seethed.

 

Danny was already guiding Grace inside the van but he turned back to intervene. He was certain that the poor woman would freak out; she’d already had too much on her plate without McGarrett losing his marbles all over her, but surprisingly, she held her own.

 

"I am a ranger with the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, sir. Name's Ellie," she said in a very even tone, her gaze trained on Steve’s eyes in which Danny saw a glimpse of realization and something he'd call terror if he didn't know that SuperSEAL was afraid of nothing. "We’re not under attack. That out there," she pointed at lava now spouting above the rim, "is an erupting volcano."

 

Steve's Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. "I know," he replied in a strange voice.

 

***

 

The van was overloaded. Beside the twelve people -- ten tourists, driver and a pilot -- who were supposed to be in it for the excursion, the ranger girl managed to gather another twelve random tourists. Those who got in first, piled up on each other: children in their parents' laps; three young people crammed together in one seat. The unlucky remainder were standing. Danny and Grace found themselves near the entrance, Danny grasping the edge of the seat to keep them vertical, Grace holding onto him for dear life. When the bus swerved and Danny bumped his elbow into the head of the elderly lady next to them, the woman did not scold him. Instead she offered to take the little girl on her lap. Grace only clung tighter to Danny.

 

She was still trembling. Danny talked some nonsense to her about how the bus was so fast and that they were getting away, that they were already so far. That she didn't need to worry, everything was going to be alright but really? He didn't believe it himself. He was scared shitless. He had been in some seriously bad situations before but never with his little girl in tow. This was supposed to be a safe family trip, damn it!

 

Everyone. Everyone from Grace's teacher to Steve fuckin' McGarrett had assured him Kilauea was a walk in the park!

 

"It's not an eruptive volcano," Mrs. Punalu said. "It's called effusive. The lava simply flows out, like a river."

 

"It's beautiful," were Kono's words. "It's one of the most breathtaking things I've ever seen, even though my heart belongs to Ka-moho-ali'i rather than to Madame Pele. You know, the shark-god? Pele's oldest brother?"

 

"Every child raised in Hawaii should go and see Kilauea," advised Chin. "The trails there are well prepared for tourists and as long as you don't veer off the trail, you're as safe as on a Honolulu street."

 

"Yes, I have been there as a kid," said Steve. "Two years after the current eruption started, in 1985. Who would have thought it would last this long back then?" For a moment he remained lost in memories but then shook his head, sighed and smiled. "I could take you and Grace there . . . I mean if you don't mind. I'd love to . . . revisit . . ."

 

Thus, coerced by puppy-dog-eyes of his beloved daughter and everyone else's good advice, Danny agreed to take his little girl onto an active volcano.

 

Danny blamed Steve for the danger they were now in. He booked the flight and the hotel in Hilo and had woken them up at dawn so they wouldn’t waste precious hours. He'd been driving them around, showing them the best sights and talking about Hawaiian gods and that paying a tribute to Madame Pele, the goddess of Kilauea, was a way to ensure good fortune. He enjoyed this trip and insisted they continued, despite obvious, more or less tangible signs that they really shouldn't.

 

The first was when Grace slipped and tore her hands on the sharp lava rocks. It had happened in the early afternoon, on their way back from the ocean entry -- yes, streams of liquid basalt, with their fiery cracks, flowing gently into the ocean to meet cool waters with a hiss and clouds of steam were beautiful in their own, awe-inspiring way. Danny wouldn't argue that. Still, with Grace hurt, he'd wanted to go back to Hilo already and then to Oahu but Steve had only cleaned the cuts and said they had some more awe-inspiring beauty to see.

 

Then, from all the walking on the uneven terrain, Danny's knee had started mocking him with a dull throb. Okay, so a rant had had to be enough to illustrate that, especially since Grace's eyes had sparkled with joy and wonder. He couldn't take that away from her because his knee ached, right?

 

But then, when they had reached the Kilauea summit caldera, they'd come across a roadblock and had been told that part of Crater Rim Drive from there to the Volcano Observatory -- and as a result Halema'uma'u Overlook that was midway there -- had been closed due to increased levels of sulfur dioxide near the vent. That should have been enough reason for them to turn tail, because increased levels of volcanic gases must have meant that something was brewing. Still, even the rangers at the roadblock had said that this was normal for Kilauea and sometimes parts of the Park were closed even a few times a month. So Steve, despite the warning, had taken them down the Rim Drive in the opposite direction and eventually they'd ended up at the very site of the eruption. An explosive eruption at that.

 

Now Steve was in the front of the bus, between the driver and the ranger girl, looking through the windows and arguing with a person who obviously knew way more than he did about volcanoes and the safest evacuation routes.

 

Ellie wanted to go toward the highway, “That’s the nearest exit . . .” she was arguing. Danny could only hear bits and pieces of their conversation over the indistinct hum of too many people cramped in too small a space. Steve had his back to Danny and kept his voice low, so Danny didn’t really know why he insisted on turning left; he only knew that Steve did, judging by his waving of his left hand. He wanted to go over there and drag him away from Ellie and perhaps even clock him one, to quiet him down--

 

Grace was saying something.

 

Danny felt it more than heard -- the warmth of her breath through the fabric of his shirt -- and immediately turned all his attention to his daughter.

 

"What is it, Monkey?" He leaned down to hear her better.

 

She looked up at him with eyes large and frightened. "What happened to Uncle Steve?" she asked in a voice so small he still had to guess half of her words.

 

The question startled him. He glanced up sharply at McGarrett again but the man seemed as fine as he ever had.

 

"What do you mean, sweetie?" Danny asked with an eerie feeling in the pit of his stomach. Was he missing something?

 

"Back then." Grace closed her eyes and immediately opened them again, glaring at Steve, almost drinking in the sight of him as if he was the only thing keeping her from freaking out. Danny realized now that, even though she was glued to him like a baby monkey to her mother, her face was turned away, so she could see Steve at all times. "Was he afraid?" she uttered. Her voice was full of disbelief as if the notion that Steve might get scared couldn't fit into her perception of reality. And, truth be told, Danny felt exactly the same, despite being an adult who understood that everyone, including super-highly-trained super-soldiers, was partial to fear.

 

"Nah," he lied. "He wasn’t afraid."

 

"I was afraid," Grace said as if she didn't hear him. "I was so afraid I couldn’t move and he . . . He couldn't move either, Danno. Was that because he was afraid like me?"

 

"Monkey," Danny started and hesitated. What was he supposed to say? Repeat that no, Steve was not afraid, until it became the truth? Because right now, when he recalled Steve’s behavior earlier, the freezing, the yelling at the ranger girl, pulling ranks on her . . . With a painful scrunch of his stomach it dawned on him that something terribly wrong had happened with his partner back there, at the crater rim.

 

“Danno?” Grace urged, her eyes large and shining, her lips trembling.

 

Oh, God, what was he supposed to tell her? What was he supposed to do?

 

For a moment the father in him fought with the partner of one SuperSEAL. For a heartbeat he felt an obligation to investigate, to determine the cause and effect, and to prescribe a cure, because McGarrett, left to his own devices, would likely cause a total annihilation; his usual tendency to bulldoze everything in the vicinity multiplied to infinity. But then he realized that he couldn't. Handling Steve was a full-time job. Handling a freaked-out Steve in SEAL mode, would require all the energy and attention of a single person and that would probably not be enough anyway. In addition to that, his primary obligation and concern was and always would be his daughter.

 

So, Danny gritted his teeth, tore his gaze away from McGarrett's rigid back and looked at Grace with all the warmth in his heart.

 

"Yes, Monkey," he decided to tell the truth for her sake. To calm her down, help her understand. "Uncle Steve was afraid. And do you know why? Because he's very, very brave. And you can't be brave if you're not afraid, because where's the courage if you don't have anything to conquer? If you go through your day like any other day, then there's nothing special about it, am I right? And if you are very scared of something but you do your thing anyway, because you know you have to -- that's when you're brave. And that's what Uncle Steve does, Monkey. He's afraid, but he's doing his thing."

 

Danny prayed that he was not wrong in his judgment. God, Madame Pele, whoever. Please grant McGarrett strength and courage. Plus, a little common sense would go a long way as well.

 

***

 

They were almost back at Crater Rim Drive, when the ground shook so violently the driver couldn't manage to correct the lurching van and they careered off the road, straight into uneven turf on the side. By a sheer miracle the van did not tip over and despite continuous tremors, eventually returned to the road.

 

People were yelling for the driver to floor the gas or praying out loud; others simply cried that they were all doomed. Ellie tried to raise her voice over the discord but she was already hoarse. Steve straightened up under the low ceiling of the vehicle and glared at the crowd.

 

"Silence!" he bellowed.

 

This must have been the voice he used on his subordinates back in his SEAL days and boy, did it work like a magic spell. The quiet that fell was interrupted only by the soft weeping of some frightened child in the back. "I don't want to hear another whine," McGarrett added with a warning glare. When he turned back to Ellie and the driver, his next question was clearly audible in the silence. "What was that tremor?"

 

"I--" Ellie hesitated, stealing a look at the people who were now staring straight at her, agitated and expectant. "I'm not really sure."

 

Steve glanced over his shoulder at the passengers and then somewhere further above their heads . . . and he knew--

 

"Landslide," he mouthed. Then, "Turn left!" he leaned over the driver, almost grabbing the wheel. He restrained himself with the last of his self-control.

 

Ellie opened her mouth to argue but at the sharp turn of his head she fell silent. She gave a curt nod to the driver's questioning look.

 

The bus nearly tipped over when they took the sharp turn at full speed. The passengers whined and complained again but this time Nature itself silenced them. Those who could, leapt to the windows on the left and held not only their voices but even their breath. Destruction followed at their heels.

 

The lava fountain was no longer visible due to enormous clouds of dirt, steam and debris rising from the collapse of the crater wall. Danny could see the edge of the rim moving toward them closer and closer as if devoured by a black hole straight from a Star Trek movie. He covered Grace's eyes even though she wouldn't see anything anyway over the heads of the other people. Besides, she was only glaring at Steve and, Danny noticed, she was not trembling any longer.

 

***

 

Five minutes later the bus stopped at the parking lot of the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory. As all the passengers tumbled out of it, they had a unique view of the inferno less than half a mile away from them. Danny could swear he felt the heat radiating from the lava fountain high as a New York skyscraper. Heaps of still slowly moving dirt emerged from the cloud of debris behind it, coming as close as the crack in the ground, mingling with the lava flowing out, dissolving, burning. The fissure was so close to the rim -- Ellie said no further than a hundred yards -- that the melting of the surface and layers beneath caused ground instability and the masses above collapsed. The Crater Rim Drive to the right from 'their' parking lot must have been destroyed at least a quarter of a mile in length. If they had turned there . . .

 

The reason they were still alive was standing ten feet from Danny and already talking to people from emergency management staff at the Observatory -- no doubt suggesting the next steps. When he noticed that he was being observed, he quickly excused himself and neared Danny and Grace.

 

"They are sending evac choppers from Hilo," he reported, all business. "Should be here within half an hour. Families with children go first so you and Grace will board with them."

 

"What about you?" Danny blurted instinctively. Of course he knew what Steve was about to do, he didn't need to ask. The Ex-SEAL intended to stay and there was nothing his partner could do about it. He didn't have to like it though.

 

Grace didn't like it either.

 

"Uncle Steve, you're family too!" she squealed before Steve managed to react to Danny's question.

 

Steve looked at her, then up at Danny. "I have other duties." He barked, executed a proper about-face and marched away.

 

Yeah, okay, so Danny kind of expected this. It didn't make the shock of seeing Steve's face, his eyes gray and cold like stone, any less disturbing. Steve's eyes had that strange quality to them, that unique trait; they would change color depending on what mood he was in, whether he slept well, whom he was talking to. With Grace -- and with Danny too, most of the time -- they were warm, green with golden specks around the irises. Like ocean waves kissed by the sun. When he was angry, they were striking blue, like the sunlit sky. Never though, not once before had Danny seen this color -- lifeless and dull.

 

This was the Steve Danny didn't know. He'd seen him doing all kinds of crazy stuff -- unorthodox interrogation techniques, overpowering dangerous criminals, driving like a maniac. And then -- he had once seen a real-life SEAL team in action, a sight he would never forget. That was when he'd realized there was a side of Steve he'd never been faced with and, frankly, he somehow figured he never would be.

 

"Danno," Grace was pulling at his sleeve, her voice high pitched, tears streaming down her face. He wanted to kiss them all away and for a brief moment he felt angry at Steve again. How could he cause her such grief? "Danno," Grace pleaded, "You have to make him come with us! You have to make him come!"

 

"Sunshine . . ." He wanted to tell her that Uncle Steve was a big boy and that he could take care of himself. And he was not McGarrett's babysitter. On the other hand . . . Steve was in a bad place, a really, unusually bad place, if even Grace was worried about him. Danny sighed and pushed a strand of hair off her face. "Go with Ellie, will you, Monkey?"

 

"I will," she nodded solemnly.

 

He exchanged one look with the ranger girl, a nod and Ellie gripped Gracie's hand and pulled her toward the crowd gathering near the side of the building.

 

"He has to come with us, Danno," Grace repeated, turning to him once more. "He is family too."

 

***

 

"Steve!" Danny caught up with the ex-SEAL at the entrance of the building. "Steven! We need to talk."

 

"You came to help?" Steve spared him a cursory glance. "Good. The scientists from the Observatory have enormous amounts of data that they are transferring onto the portable drives as we speak. Those need to be salvaged as well; their analysis will shed new light on the volcanology in general and on Kilauea in particular. That's as important as evacuating people; it might help save lives in the future." He was almost running through the corridor as he spoke, then up a staircase and into another corridor. Danny could barely catch up, the sharp ache in his knee now constant.

 

"That's not what I wanted to talk about," he spat through clenched teeth.

 

"What then?" Steve didn't even turn to him. He pushed through the door and they found themselves in a room full of people running back and forth. "The evacuation? I guess Grace is in good hands if you're here." Now he turned. Stopped so suddenly Danny bumped into his chest and glared down. "You are not planning on sending her alone and staying here, Danny. That would be just plain stupid. She's a little girl, she needs her father. I think you should instead take some of these data; that might actually be helpful. Let me talk to those people." He turned away not waiting for Danny's response and leaving Danny standing there, panting.

 

Since when was McGarrett the more talkative of the two!?

 

It boggled Danny's mind. He strode toward McGarrett who was already talking to some short, bald guy in glasses and grabbed his arm.

 

"Steven!" he stressed. "We have to talk. Now. Sideline."

 

"We're in the middle of a crisis, Danny, in case you--"

 

This time Danny cut in.

 

" _You_ are in the middle of a crisis, Steven. And that is what we must talk about."

 

Steve's expression changed. It wasn't a big change, because his features already looked like they were carved in stone but still it was discernible to Danny. A flicker of terror, a blink-and-you'll-miss-it vulnerability. And then he was once again this tough-as-nails soldier.

 

"What do you want me to say?" he spat. "Huh, Danny? What? That I freaked out? That I didn't know where I was, what was going on? Yes, I did. Satisfied? Does that make you feel better? Because it sure as hell does not make _me_ feel better. Do you want me to say I can't do my job? Hell, no! Never. I can and I will do my job and that is to protect people. I am a Navy SEAL. I swore to serve and protect and I sure as hell am going to do that. I can't quit that. I can't give that up. I can't." He begged. Danny realized that Steve, despite looking like he was on the offensive, in fact simply pleaded for some validation, that he desperately wanted proof that what he was doing was good and right.

 

And, truth be told, even though everything in Danny screamed that Steve was unbalanced and he needed to be evacuated probably more than anyone else, that it was as if he was wounded, injured and injured always had priority, just like children -- at the same time he knew that in this instance, taking him away from his duty would be the worst scenario of all. Steve was a special case. It was up to Danny to defuse him now. As much as he could in the few minutes he had anyway.

 

Complying and expressing trust felt like the best approach.

 

"You are _ex_ -SEAL, Steve," he reminded at first, in a quiet voice. "But I _understand_ what you need to do. I trust your judgment. Now, where are those files you want me to take from here?"

 

Steve blinked, then nodded and next was a very frenzied fifteen miutes of downloading, storing data, labeling and packing thumb-drives, discs, whatever anyone could find. They even dismantled two computers and disconnected their hard drives. Danny ended up with a bag full of stuff that was probably backed up on some servers a hundred miles away anyway, but in case the download failed in all the havoc, it would be doubled up in a more material way.

 

"They want to stay here till the last moment," Steve said and Danny knew that he would be the last to board evac. "They want to collect as much data as possible."

 

"You’ll be careful, won’t you?" was all he could say and Steve nodded, his eyes turning just this shade of green.

 

"I'll see you tomorrow."

 

And Danny left the building with his heart as heavy as the bag he was carrying.

 

***

 

The chopper was coming closer, the next one already a dot on the horizon. A group of nearly twenty people -- all families with children -- waited, bunched up near the place where it would land. Danny saw Ellie's dark head and soon pushed through to his baby girl.

 

"Monkey." He clung to her as if they hadn't seen each other in months.

 

"I thought you wouldn't come to say goodbye," she choked out.

 

He grabbed her face and stared into her eyes. "That I _what_?" he glared at her, bewildered.

 

"You're staying, aren't you?" Gracie asked as if it was the most natural thing. "With Uncle Steve."

 

"Baby, what are you--?" Danny didn't finish that sentence, suddenly breathless, because he realized she was right. He would stay. "I want to come with you." That was true as well.

 

"I know. But Uncle Steve needs you more than I do. Besides I'll be safe out there. Will you be safe here too?" Her voice faltered and two large tears rolled down her cheeks.

 

The wind from the chopper's propeller ruffled her hair. The noise was getting louder; soon it would be too loud to talk. Danny swallowed a large lump.

 

"I'll be safe, Monkey. You call Mommy as soon as you land. I'll try to call her too and she'll come to get you, okay? Don't be scared, baby, everything is gonna be okay."

 

"I will be scared." Grace looked up at him, so serious. "I'm very scared, Danno. For you and for Uncle Steve, but I will be brave, you know?" her voice was fading against the roar of the helicopter's engines but Danny didn't have to hear her, to know exactly what she was saying; she was paraphrasing what he’d told her earlier. "I will be better than my fear and I will do my thing."

 

Danny felt tears in his eyes and blinked them away before she could see them. He held her lovingly then kissed both her cheeks and handed her over to Ellie. The ranger girl tried to protest that she couldn't evacuate, but then he handed her a bag with all the drives and told her that she needed to take care of the data on the eruption. That was her job after all.

 

He stood waving until the chopper lifted into the air and flew away, taking Gracie to safety. Then he turned toward the building and braced for the biggest challenge of today.

 

***

 

It was already night when Rachel called that she found Grace and that their daughter was safe and what the hell was Danny thinking, letting her go alone like this? He didn't have the strength to explain things to her. Maybe he'd made a mistake. There wasn't a moment in the last five or so hours that he wasn't thinking about his brave girl and wondering if she was alright.

 

"I'll talk to you when I get back," he snapped and clicked the phone shut.

 

He looked around. The lava was still spouting from the ground, tall as a skyscraper, bright and hot like the sun, but the opening in the crust was not growing any bigger. It was not threatening to swallow the Observatory like it had swallowed parts of the caldera neighborhood to the west. Behind him the building of the Observatory was dark and quiet, save for two lit windows where the skeleton staff maintained their sophisticated equipment, gathering and analyzing data on the depth and intensity of minor earthquakes, the temperature in and around the fissure, the probable placement and depth of the lava reservoir underneath their feet. It had been confirmed that the link with the major server on Maui was severed in the earthquake, so some of the data had been temporarily at a risk of being lost. Now everything was in working order again.

 

Right behind the building, one last chopper with its two pilots and a team of five marines, waited in case of sudden emergency, in case Madame Pele decided that she was not satisfied with today's offering. Four people had died, ten more were unaccounted for and over fifty were injured. Danny thought he hadn't yet fully registered those numbers. He was mostly glad to be alive, no matter how selfish that was. Having the chopper at the ready and the soldiers to help them evacuate remaining people and perhaps even some of the equipment, was reassuring.

 

He stood alone like this for a long while, not feeling the need to go back inside and sit idly like he had for the last couple of hours. Steve found ways to occupy himself but Danny was mostly in everybody's way.

 

Now Steve apparently decided to occupy himself with talking to Danny. His steps were quiet but audible in the stillness of the night. A crunch of gravel, a soft thud of heavy boots.

 

"That Rachel?" he asked, barely above a whisper.

 

Danny nodded without turning to him. He was staring at the lava fountain, squinting his eyes against its brightness. They stung because he was glaring at the fire, not because he was afraid he had given Rachel ammunition to start another custody battle. He didn't really know anymore what to expect of her and now that she was pregnant, her unpredictability peaked more than ever. And for what? At the beginning he'd thought he would be needed. He had tried to corner Steve, push him to deal with his shit but his partner had brushed him off again and again and kept a tight lid on whatever had been going on in his head, so after a few attempts Danny had stopped prodding. He'd tried to simply assist with whatever had been needed but anyone could have done that while he should have been with his baby girl. He would be going home now.

 

"For what it's worth," he heard a soft, strained voice right next to him. "I'm glad you stayed." Steve declared and paused. Danny waited but no other sound reached him so he turned to look at his partner. Was Steve reading his mind or something? If so, then he should -- please, kindly -- add something.

 

Steve was staring at the fire as well and at Danny's look he turned too -- a fleeting glance, a tightlipped smile, eyes cast downward -- and returned to glaring ahead immediately. He sighed and licked his lips as if that would make the words coming out somewhat easier.

 

"You helped," he uttered.

 

"I'm glad." Danny nodded. That was probably all he was going to get from McGarrett as a way of thanks and hell, it felt like it was a lot and not enough at the same time.

 

But then Steve added, almost physically forced himself to say those words, "Your presence kept me grounded." He didn't turn toward Danny, didn't meet his eyes. Admitting to weakness was not something he was doing lightly.

 

Danny had to take it and go with it. Now or never.

 

"What really happened out there, Steve?" Danny whispered. Steve might have given all he could but Danny needed more. "Talk to me, partner. I need to know if I have to go to the Governor and tell him you need a psych eval, man. And I'm not saying this to threaten you but to protect you. You get that, right?"

 

Steve nodded, bowed his head, chin to chest, but didn't say a word.

 

"Look, Steve, I get that you are a SEAL, okay? That you guys are super tough, screened for PTSD resistance and then trained further to resist any form of trauma effects even more. But then, you do face some super tough shit out there too. Sometimes, something . . ."

 

"It was a flashback, Danny," Steve cut in, his voice still quiet. "One flashback doesn't make PTSD."

 

"I know. I know, Steve, I'm not saying-- I only want to know -- because you bounced off beautifully -- if it's for real. Or are you just storing it all inside to freak out later."

 

Steve didn't respond. He stood still, the barely perceptible rise and fall of his chest the only movement. He seemed to not even blink. Danny refrained from pushing now. He'd said his thing and he could only wait to see if it would have any affect. He was almost sure that the conversation was over and they should go back into the building, when Steve inhaled sharply.

 

"I may have been on the verge," he said quickly, "a couple of times tonight." He fell silent once more and this silence stretched too, testing Danny's patience. Eventually he disclosed. "On the verge of a couple more flashbacks. When people were evacuating and that guy panicked. When those marines barged in like they needed to secure the building. I was close to . . . But you were there. You kept me grounded."

 

Oh. Danny wasn't sure how to respond to that

 

"I'm glad I wasn't completely useless then," he mumbled and felt silly for making it all about him.

 

"Are you kidding?" Steve turned to look at him. "I was useless!" He sighed, his breath trembling and shook his head. "I was wrong to want to stay. That was selfish, not . . . And because of me you stayed too and now Rachel is pissed, isn't she?" As far as diversions went, that one was pretty obvious. Steve directed the conversation to Danny and his hardships and that was a tell-tale sign that he wanted to end the discussion on his mental state.

 

Danny nodded. Alright. They talked more about McGarrett's emotional issues than they had since he met the guy. He had to be happy with what he got.

 

"She'll get over it," he said with a smirk that surprised even him. "I think we have a new level of understanding after she took Grace out to New Jersey on nothing but a whim. If she tried to threaten me now, I'd pull some tough ammunition. Tell me something, Steven." He turned to his partner, "Am I a magnet for mentally unstable people? You think? First Rachel, now you. Maybe that's why you like being around me so much, huh? Maybe I have some quality that pulls freaks like you to me."

 

Steve looked at him with a furrowed brow for a while and Danny thought that perhaps it was a bad joke. He tried to come up with a way to un-say it but then Steve snorted and shook his head. He was alright with it. They were alright. And maybe, just maybe, after everything that happened, Steve might begin to heal a little.

 

***

.end

 


End file.
